Crime and Punishment: The Grotesque

[as told from a sock puppet]

In Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky writes, “In order to judge someone it is necessary to examine him for oneself, and at close quarters, and that he would reserve the privilege of forming an opinion about you until he had a chance of getting to know you a bit” (71). If I had arms, I’d show you how this line connects in a power point—but alas! My arms were ripped off in a terrible washing machine accident. Why did she put me on fast cycle—I’m clearly a delicate! Anyway, we note how Dostoevsky and Allen both represent society (along with their main characters), as disjointed, disenchanted, neurotic, egotistical individuals who feel compartmentalized by the gargantuan world around them. Crime and Punishment coalesces well with Allen, for both collectively fit together like a comfortable pair of socks . . . yes, I’m aware of the irony. What’s at stake here is the idea of the “grotesque.”

In his essay, “Poetics of the City,” Donald Fanger writes, “The grotesque is the estranged world […] It is our world, which has been transformed” (82). In the beginning of the novel, we note Raskolnikov as an ostracized individual due to his grotesque, or marked otherness—poverty. A man whom author Konstantin Mochulsky states, “[…] is aware of his infinite solitude” (94). Dostoyevsky writes:
[…] the human race is divided into the “ordinary” and the “extraordinary.” The ordinary must live in obedience and do not have the right to break the law, because, well, because they’re ordinary see. The extraordinary, on the other hand, have the right to commit all sorts of crimes and break the law in all sorts of ways precisely because they’re extraordinary. (311)

Raskolnikov, like the majority of Woody Allen’s characters, is divided, for he lives in an “era of definition;” one which stereotypes and assumes. Throughout the novel, we note these ideas in the duality and imagery of the writing. The Interior vs. Exterior “self,” offer conflicts represented in the form of religious thinking and morality. In turn, “the body politic,” marked with the label of difference, offers its own calculated language through demeanor (e.g. detail of not wearing a noticeable “hat” for instance when he’s going to kill the old woman). These two representations demonstrate the duality of Raskolnikov and intermingle well into the ideas generated by Allen.

Further, the imagery in the form of Raskolnikov’s dream of the “flogged horse,” offers parallels to his own character’s struggles in carrying life’s burdens in an unfair/hostel world. This is representational in the Marmeladov’s impoverished family; how he represents a decayed individual—one who wastes money on liquor, and personal vice.

In closing, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Woody Allen both present helpless, grotesque individuals; for the two secondary plots of Marmeladov’s family and Raskolnikov’s sister Dunya, according to Mochulsky, represent the“[…] embodiment of [Raskolnikov’s] contesting ideas. The idea that good is utterly powerless . . . sacrifice purposeless” (92). In the end, through these two writers, we learn a powerful truth: True knowledge of self lies in the acceptance of struggle, the acceptance of difference—the acceptance of the grotesque. Thank you…and please use Downey fabric softener.

Discussion Question:
Why did Raskolnikov kill the old woman?